Forza barely had time to react. She yanked her remaining wing forward, shielding herself with it like a makeshift barrier. The lightning ripped through it—eviscerating the construct, atomising it mid-air—but it gave her the time she needed to survive the blast. The pulse still threw her backwards hard.
She hit the dirt with a thud I could barely register. Rolled once. Twice. Came to a skidding halt several feet from me, coughing and groaning, sparks flickering around her body from residual shock.
She wasn't dead. But she was almost down.
And me?
I was just barely still alive—burning, bleeding, and poisoned, with a missing arm, no weapon, and half a mind left to hold anything together.
The Chimaera turned back toward me. Its head low. Breathing heavily. Blood was pouring from its neck, but still standing, moving and still wanting us dead. Though that's not what Forza must've seen.
She was already back on her feet—broken, burned near her left arm, and seemingly half-dead as well—but she didn't care, not with those eyes and the look they carried. She surged forward again with nothing but raw guts, sheer will, and the winds that barely obeyed her anymore. No elegant formations or manifestations. No mana constructs. Just battered instincts and a dying resolve.
She went straight for the Chimaera's neck, her weak point. The bleeding, pulsing, exposed line where Snowhite still remained half-buried.
The Chimaera saw her too. Reacted. Her right arm—massive, blood-slick, monstrous—rose up overhead like a guillotine. Whether she planned to grab or smash Forza, I didn't know. And I didn't wait long enough to find out either.
I begged, I begged my body and my brain for a thousandth time, begging the cracked, melting shards of what was once my mana core.
Please move, please react, just once more, one last time. Telekinesis flared—a dying flare, but enough. It wrapped around the Chimaera's wrist. Not strong. Not stable. But it stalled her for just a second, which was all Forza needed.
She crashed into the same wound. Once, twice, then thrice.
Each strike was deliberate. Brutal. No flair. No flash. Just bone-breaking, skull-rattling blows, each one echoing with a sickening crunch as the Chimaera's screams grew harsher, more ragged—less fury, more pain now.
Then, Forza changed tactics; she didn't try to pull Snowhite out. Instead, she grabbed the hilt with both hands and drove it deeper, not just into the neck anymore but upwards. Toward the skull.
The Chimaera sensed it. She shifted fast, suddenly collapsing sideways, letting her entire monstrous weight fall to the right. Her plan was clear: crush Forza beneath her. No magic. No tricks. Just brute weight. The movement was crude. Animalistic.
Like a giant beast flopping over for a belly rub... But this bitch wasn't asking for affection. She was going for the kill.
And yet... Forza was faster. She screamed, calling wind to her aid one last time and the winds? They answered.
They didn't roar or explode or tear the sky apart—just a sharp, desperate pulse that pushed. A final shove, just enough to hold the Chimaera's mass at bay for a moment, which was enough.
Forza reached Snowhite. Planted her foot. Screamed again—and this time, not out of pain, but out of finality.
She drove the blade upward, through muscle, through cartilage, through bone, straight into the Chimaera's brain. The beast shrieked, not a roar, not a battle-cry.
This one was different. It was shrill. Panicked. Final.
The Chimaera's limbs went berserk, flailing wildly, lightning arcing through the air in mad pulses, trying to lash out at anything it could touch. Its claws twitched. Its jaw snapped.
But I grabbed them—or at least I tried to... and I failed, telekinesis no longer felt mine, but foreign and distant...
Snowhite glowed deeply, powered by her mana. It vibrated in her hands, channelled with raw force as she ripped it upward, tearing open what was left of the beast's skull. Blood and brain matter followed—dark, thick, putrid.
And then, silence, after her last roar or scream of agony, vanished. The Chimaera froze over. Her eyes—every last one of them—went wide, then dull. She didn't fall. Not immediately. She just… slumped. Like something unhooked from its own strings. A titan collapsing without grace.
Forza stood there, arm still raised, body shaking, Snowhite drenched and glowing in her grip. She didn't speak, and neither did I... Because I couldn't. My lungs burned. My brain spun and burned as well, like pieces of it were on fire, while the rest? Somehow enduring the boiling heat from those flames. My missing arm throbbed like a ghost limb on fire... But one thought cut through everything.
It was finally over. The Chimaera had finally collapsed, its limbs twitching in death, its brain torn open by the very blade I once carried, now driven home by Forza. The battlefield was silent in that haunting way only a battlefield can be—no roar, no resistance, just the quiet aftermath of violence. But even as the beast lay dead, I knew my battle wasn't. Not with her. With myself. With the consequences of everything I'd just done.
The pain wasn't just physical now—it was structural. I couldn't feel my right side anymore, only the memory of where it used to be, my arm. My chest felt like it was caved in, then melted away before again caving in, my mind cracked wide open. Every nerve ending in my body had been overclocked. My core was drained and severely fractured. I could feel it all falling apart from the inside. My body was failing, shutting down by the second.
Darkness crept in from the edges of my vision. Not the metaphorical kind. The real one. Black static blurring the outlines of the world, starting from the corners and closing in like a curtain. My eye was still open, yet everything felt dimmed and detached, like I was watching someone else die from inside their skull. My head, no longer held upright by anything more than stubborn instinct, lolled to the side and rested in the dirt. I couldn't even lift it back up.
That's when I saw her. Forza. She was sprinting toward me, or trying to. Her steps were uneven, desperate, her face locked in some expression I couldn't fully read. Her mouth moved rapidly, her brows drawn tight, her silver eyes wide with panic. I couldn't hear a thing. Whatever sounds the world still had to offer were already gone from my ears. Silence had taken over. But even without sound, I knew what she was saying.
She was calling my name.
In her hand were vials—small glass containers flickering with faint magical light. Healing potions, emergency elixirs. She was doing everything right. All the textbook steps to try and keep someone alive after a fatal engagement. But I already knew. I could see the truth in the sluggish rhythm of my heartbeat. In the blank hum of mana inside me where power used to roar. These potions weren't going to work. This wasn't the kind of damage that could be mended by crafted medicine. This wasn't a wound. This was a cost. A debt I owed for pushing my ability past its limits, over and over again, until there was nothing left of me but splinters and static.
She didn't know that. Not yet. Maybe she was still hoping. Maybe she was still in denial. That was fine. That was human. But I couldn't let her carry the guilt for this. Not when I was the one who made every single call that brought me here.
It was hard—damn near impossible—but I forced myself to move. Just a little. I couldn't speak, couldn't raise a hand or even blink properly. But I managed to shift the edge of my mouth. A twitch. The faintest pull of muscle. The closest thing I had left to a smile. It wasn't clean or comforting. It was broken, bloody, and pathetic—but it was genuine. It was meant for her. Meant to say, "Don't blame yourself." Meant to say, "This was my choice." Meant to say, "It's okay."
That single act drained what little remained in me. My lungs felt hollow, my core entirely non-responsive. Even my heart began to slow, syncing with the fading vision. The world around me continued to lose clarity, as if slipping into a haze I couldn't resist. The rain blurred into streaks, frozen midair in my fading perception. Even Forza, only a few feet away now, looked like she was moving underwater.
Still, I could see her eyes. Just for a second longer. Those silver eyes I got to know so well. They shimmered with water, and I hoped—truly hoped that it was the rain. That it wasn't her. That she wasn't crying for me.
Because that would mean... I'd mattered to her... Which would make her mourn my death in her arms.
If this was the end… then so be it. I could accept it. Because I didn't run. I didn't fold. I fought. I protected. I endured.
And in that last second before everything vanished... I felt a touch on my face, on my cheek, it was rough... yet warm, like a loved one's.